2026 BMW R1300GS OPTION 719 REVIEW – “ANY ROAD, ANY TIME…AND IS THERE ANY MORE BRISKET?”

I’ve told you this over and over.

BMW’s GS is the best motorcycle in the world. Any world.

 

From the fantasy world in your head where you’re conquering the Pamir Track, or shaming sportsbike riders through the bends, to the real world, where you can easily ride any road any time, in comfort and confidence. And shame sportbike riders.

Consider also the special magic of so-called “Adventure” bikes. You can carve hotmix corners at a pace that liquifies your brain, then go ploughing up some shale-damned proto-road because you need to know where it goes.

 

And if you’re doing that on a GS, then you’re doing it on the bike that invented that dualist shit. And because BMW Motorrad tends not to sit on its hands, in 2026 you’re doing it on the best bike in the world.

The GS was brilliant when it first appeared in 1980 as the R80G/S. The G/S stood for Gelände/Straße (terrain/street) and it did exactly what it said on the box.

 

That box has been…well, enhanced. It’d been added to. The original G/S was a fairly basic all-terrain chugger. Forty-six years later the GS is a staggering, hi-tech, hyper-tourer that still pretends to serious dirt ability (especially with the GSA), and gets away with it.

Each and every time I ride a GS, I come away wondering what cursed idiot mindset stops me from immediately buying one. It’s great at everything. Like, literally. It is the bike for all seasons and all reasons.

 

Except maybe one. And that reason no longer has the imperative in my life it once did. Hauling hot, coke-filled strippers through the night to a cheap motel where unspeakable acts of carnality ensue, really doesn’t motivate me as much as it once did. But, if you’re wondering, a Harley is still the best bike for that gig.

But let’s not digress. Even the very base GS model brilliantly deals with what you chuck at it. All that happens as you climb up the GS R1300 range – The GS Pure follows the GS, then it goes: GS Trophy, GS Trophy X, GS Triple Black, and the one I had, the GS Option 719 – is a variation on a perfectly executed theme.

 

You can see all the variants at the following link, so I’m not going into them here.

 

R 1300 GS | BMW Motorrad

Instead, I’m going to tell you about a recent journey I took on the Option 719. A journey which had several fascinating outcomes.

 

This journey has become an annual pilgrimage for me. Each year, as winter approaches, my brother Mick holds what I call Mick’s Massive Magical Meatathon. It apparently coincides with the NRL’s Magic Round, so he calls it that.

I do not rugby league, so this means nothing to me, but some of the attendees are fans. But Mick’s Magic Round is really nothing but an excuse for Mick to spend two days cooking meat for us all. I have seen him put on a Manly jersey, but only briefly and only after several drinks.

So, when I cay “cook”, I mean barbecue. The smoking US-style barbecue, by which meat is transformed into something so idiotically delicious it defies any rational description. It renders all who eat it into drooling, masticating imbeciles intent on consuming as much as their colons can stand without rupturing.

Mick is beyond just good at this barbecue business. He is a dedicated master at it. He has won prizes for his efforts. He has a pro-level rig he hauls all over the east coast of Australia to compete with other meat-priests.

Look, I’d hang with Mick if he burned supermarket sausos in a dirty fry-pan. My love for him transcends food. But the fact he goes to enormous effort and expense to feed two dozen current and ex-outlaws, bull-riders, horse-breakers, bouncers, miners, and one glorious Irishman (Hi, Ferghal!) is some next-level shit.

And Mick barbecues all the food groups…

 

Wagyu steaks, 12-hour brisket, pork, lamb, chicken…it’s staggering and delicious and we’re all smeared with animal-fat satisfaction and gluttony at the end of it. None of us can understand how Mick makes it taste so amazing. He’s like some fridge-sized protein sorcerer.

We sit around a fire. We tell stories. And we laugh. And laugh. And then we laugh some more. The piss-taking is vicious. There’s a shared madness and righteousness about us. A dedication to not go quietly into that good night. It’s what men have done for eons. It is what has bound us and given us meaning. And, sadly, it’s not done all that very much anymore, if at all, by far too many blokes. Which is ineffably sad.

But my friends and I still do it every chance we get. We understand how important…Hell, crucial such things are. Not to do them would be unthinkable.

 

So, I eagerly go when I am invited.

And each year, I endeavour to make my trip to Narrabri from Singleton different to the year before. I am, of course, constrained in this by the bike I’m on at the time.

 

But on a GS? Pilgrim, the world and all its roads is my oyster.

 

It also helps I am a great lover of isolated and little-known towns. There are the forgotten wee places where the real Australia can still be found. These places are like their own civilisations. They have their own histories, their own characters, and their own legends.

Australia is not like Europe. Our villages are not a few kilometres apart. Our towns are surrounded by deserts, scrublands, insanely-sized farms, mega-harsh wilderness, and a booming emptiness you’ll never experience in a car.

 

It’s all there on a bike though, isn’t it?

 

This year I decided to do Singleton to Quirindi, then Yanergee, Premer, Tambar Springs, Mulalley, Ghoolendaadi, Baan Baa, and Narrabri, with a quick spin out to the Paul Wild Observatory the Tarrie Lake Road…and maybe some of the dirt roads near there to aid in processing Mick’s barbecue.

Got to digest that lovely meat some way, right?

 

And this is precisely the type of digestive process the GS lends itself too. See a road? Off you go? Is it dirt? Off you go harder. Does the dirt get more challenging? No problems.

Once you leave Quirindi and chuck a left off the Kamilaroi Highway onto the Coonabarabran Road, the only thing on the road with you will be odd truck and farmer. The sky is big, the surface intriguing, and you can certainly get a wiggle on. You will encounter many dry causeways on this route. They are silly fun because you can enter them fast and when you leave them there will be some brief flight time. The first time it happens, you’ll shit yourself. After that, you’ll do it on purpose.

 

The GS is perfectly fine with leaving the earth’s gravity now and again. Not many other bikes are.

Before you get to Yanergee, you can turn off for Lake Goran, which is probably worth a look, since there’s not a lot of water out that way. A big spread of it in the middle of nothing needs to be seen.

 

I got to Premer quicker than I thought I would. I blame the causeways. It’s a strange little town. One-hundred and twenty-six people live there. One of them is a heavy-metal artist who displays his wares about his house. Premer itself is surrounded by cotton farms – which look like enormous ratshit wastelands when the cotton isn’t ready for picking. Then they look like fluffy ratshit wastelands.

 

I chose to kick on to Tambar Springs rather than examine the Premer pub. Tambar Springs is way more interesting.

 

The first WWI war memorial in Australia was erected here. The town’s tucked into the foothills of the Warrumbungle Range and was once infested with Diprotodons.

They were mostly gone by the time the town was settled in 1868, which is just as well. These were the largest marsupials to ever live, and there’s no way white English folks could have dealt with them like our natives did.

 

Diprotodons weighed as much as three-and-half tonnes, stood almost two-metres at the shoulder and were some four-metres long. That is one hell of a big wombat. And it had these massive teeth, with which it used to fight for females and defend itself and its herd from these giant fucked-up marsupial lions, Thylacoleo Carnifex.

 

Yes, these beasts did co-exist with our aborigines, since the Late Pleistocene ended about 40,000 years ago, and the lions, the giant wombats, and the natives were all around at that time.

The pub in Tambar Springs is called the Royal. Just like a million other Australian pubs. If they had any imagination, it would be called The Diprotodon Arms, or Monster Wombat, or Big Beast Bar. Because it is a splendid establishment and worthy of a better name.

 

The publican, Michael, served me a truly delicious burger.

“We make the patties ourselves,” he said. “I’m not serving people those sad, flat patties you get elsewhere.”

 

I was the only “people” in the pub at that time, but the place is spotless, nicely done up, and apparently enjoys a solid motorcycle patronage. Seems I’m not the only one who likes causeways.

After Tambar Springs, the country changes from thick scrub to a way more open, but very arid landscape. This is still cotton country, with some beef and sheep tossed in. You can see for miles up the road, and while there’s the odd uneven surface, there’s nothing that’s going to upset a fast-moving GS.

 

I got to Narrabri mid-afternoon. My timing was superb. I got to go look for firewood in the Pilliga Scrub, with Johnny, Pete, Mick’s son, James, and Ferghal and his son, Bronson.

 

I enjoy this ritual greatly. Firstly, I get to experience Johnny’s masterclass of 4WD-towing-a-twin-axle-trailer. I remain amazed at just what insane level of bastard bush-insanity a pro can throw his wife’s luxo Landcruiser into. And at what speed.

I also get a kick out of the Pilliga. This has got to be the eeriest bush in Australia. It is almost utterly silent. There is virtually no birdsong. There are lots of animals, but it’s not an easy place to hunt because of how dense the bush is. Monstrous razorbacks live here. I have hunted them in the past. I understand why the local aborigines believe the Pilliga is full of evil spirits.

 

It is also haunted by the Pilliga Princess. The essence of this is the Pilliga Princess is the ghost of Clair Wibson. Clair was a homeless woman, some say she was aboriginal, others say she was white, but if she was aboriginal, that would make her the only aboriginal to ever be seen in the Pilliga.

She would push her shopping trolly along the Newell Highway between Narrabri and Coonabarabran – a 120-km stretch of desolate highway hedged either side by the cursed Pilliga – and she was hit and killed by a truck on 20 March, 1993.

She was a legend when she was alive, and she is an even bigger legend after her tragic end. I have never seen her or her ghost, but a lot of people have. Hers is probably the most enduring ghost story in Australia. I have an open mind about these things, because I have seen some very strange shit in the outback, and the Pilliga is about as strange a place as it gets.

Anyway, while were out getting firewood, the weirdest thing we saw was how expertly Johnny could reverse a twin-axle trailer through impenetrable scrub after deciding he’d gone the “wrong way”.

 

We got the firewood, and we returned to feast at Mick’s table, warm ourselves at his fire, and revel his immense hospitality.

The next morning, I set off to behold the small array of radio telescopes at the Paul Wild Observatory some 30-kay out of Narrabri. And maybe try out some of the empty dirt roads out that way. And there are a lot of them, let me tell you.

 

You’re north of the Pilliga, so to avoid haunting and strangeness, do not turn left on the Yarrie Lake Road. Keep heading northwest after the array, and you’ll end up in Wee Waa. Up this way is the vast water-thieving bullshit of the NSW DPIRD Cotton Research Institute. It runs north, east and west of Wee Waa, and is a vast tract of man-made water reservoirs feeding endless cotton fields.

It’s also an epicentre of stupidity. Cotton needs immense amounts of water. We are one of the driest countries on earth. We cannot eat cotton. But we need water to grow food. So we spend vast amounts of tax money working out how to grow cotton better and faster. And the answer is we need more water. Consider this the next time you’re looking at one of our many dried-up rivers.

 

I had a beaut morning belting along some cool dirt roads. Seems it’s not only causeways that aid with digestion. The GS remained faultless and utterly immune to any criticism. Too heavy? It’s not. Not for what it does. But you can always get a smaller-capacity version if this one intimidates you, sweetie.

 

Too tall? Not anymore. It has adaptive ride height. You come to a stop, the thing lowers itself, and you’re flat-footed on the ground. You ride off, and up she goes. I would like it to make a cool noise when it does that, because that would add to the occasion.

 

The engine is immensely tractable and perfectly suited to the bike and what you want out of it. Yes, it goes insanely faster than you might think it does. And the new-gen paralever suspension at the back and telelever business up front combine with high-end computers and electricity to do voodoo shit to the ride. It’s the best suspension on earth. In all situations.

I’m not sure there is a more technically sophisticated all-terrain motorcycle on the market. I certainly haven’t ridden one. The GS literally does everything superbly well.

Of course it’s comfortable. The Option 719 variant also has heated seats. Just saying.

 

But I think it’s most important attribute is the way it imparts confidence to the rider. No matter what you encounter on your travels, you KNOW the GS is up to it. Whatever “it” is. This is a priceless commodity on a bike.

I returned to Mick’s table late in the afternoon. I let Jason and Johnny have a brief ride on the GS. Both are hard-wired, all-life Harley riders.

 

Johnny came back and declared he’d been living under a rock for decades. How could a bike be that good? How is it so comfortable? I shrugged. He walked away muttering to himself.

 

Jason came back and wanted to know how much it was. I told him the base one, which was all he really needed, was just under 30-grand. If he wanted the blinged and fully-loaded version, it would be a good bit more. Since he was the kind of bloke who felt the GS’s quickshifter was the unnecessary work of the devil, I pointed him at the Pure. He said he was going on Monday to buy one. And he did just that.

That evening, I spent a lot of time communing with Big Stu, a man I love and respect with my whole being. Stu was once in the Rebels. We missed each other’s outlaw club tenure by a few years, but we both knew the same people.

 

Last year he and I spoke at length of how we may only have one good battle left in us. We both agreed we would make sure that battle was worth it. This year we spoke about how that window of opportunity was closing. I said I could always drive us into town and we would see what we could find. I saw Stu’s eyes sparkle. Then we both laughed. We weren’t going into town. But it was enough that we both did briefly countenance the thought.

Yes, it was one of those forever-memorable nights. It invariably is at Mick’s place. The stories, the laughter, the intense sense of being part of something irreplaceable and eternal is all-encompassing. The food is beyond imagining and Mick cannot be praised enough.

 

I hope to attend many, many more. And maybe one night, Big Stu and I will go into town.